This was Jonah Hill’s third time hosting Saturday Night Live and there were ups and downs in his role as host. Between a horrible sketch with violent horses and an amazing sketch about clogging the toilet, it was a decent episode of the NBC show.
Hill isn’t the best host that SNL has had this season, Jimmy Fallon takes that crown. He isn’t the worst either, Josh Hutcherson had that horrible episode a few weeks ago. But, Hill handled the material that was thrown at him like a pro. Even when he had to get punched by a puppet horse or wear sunglasses on the back of his head.
We have to give Hill some credit where it is due. When he hosted previously, he endured an entire sketch of getting hit in the nuts. This episode was just another regular Hill routine. He is so great with any kind of comedy it makes me wish that he’d do more movies like 21 Jump Street and less like The Wolf of Wall Street.
I ranked Hill’s sketches from the worst to the best, excluding one. The sketch Sweetland Ranch isn’t even good enough to be included in the list. It was basically Cesily Strong and Hill getting beat up by a puppet horse. Because Cecily’s character sings a Joni Mitchell song, the sketch cannot be embedded. By missing it, you’re lucky. It was a garbage sketch.
Here is a ranking of Jonah Hill’s SNL sketches.
[new page= Not Gay!]
10. Cold Open: Men’s Figure Skating
If the writers of SNL were going for not funny and homophobic, they really succeeded. This sketch was not a great way to start out the episode. They tried to make the really lame joke that Putin hates gay people and all figure skaters are gay. Obviously not all figure skaters are gay and not all straight men are complete dummies or slime balls so the sketch didn’t work at all.
While it was a little funny to see all of the skaters falling, it got a little old. If they wanted to make a joke about Putin’s opinions on gay people, it belonged as a quip in Weekend Update, not an entire sketch.
[new page= More Californians]
9. Inside SoCal
SNL really likes making fun of people from California, don’t they? My favorite SNL sketch of all time is The Californians and their really crazy accents. However, I was not a fan of this sketch at all.
It was too crass and incredibly pointless. What was the joke here? Teens in California are just like every other annoying teenager who parties? I did think that Jonah Hill’s costume was spot on. If I don’t see at least one guy in LA wearing his sunglasses on the back of his head then it is a bad day.
[new page= I’m six years old]
8. Benihana
I can relate to Adam Grossman. Like Grossman, making jokes that are a little mean and slightly inappropriate is what I do. While Girl You Wish You Never Started a Conversation With at a Party is my favorite SNL personality, Adam Grossman definitely makes the top ten in my book.
But, I was disappointed in this sketch. It wasn’t as funny as the previous two. His jokes were safer and he was too quick to explain them. And there were too many jokes about his stepmother. There were plenty of targets.
Hopefully Jonah hosts again so Grossman can make his return. He’s six years old!
[new page=Look, a bunny!]
7. The Hit
So three guys are sitting in a car, getting ready to kill somebody and then they start talking about the snow. That’s the joke. Some of the sketches make you wonder exactly what got cut in order for this one to make it onto the air.
As the three men are sitting to wait for their next victim, Kenan Thompson looks outside and comments about how beautiful the snow is. Somehow that leads into a sing along with Taran Killam. And it is a bunch of lame puns and poetry.
When Jay Pharoah’s character finally hopped into the dreaming game, that was when it really got funny. The tough guy went from telling his partners to stop talking about the snow to staring at an adorable bunny out the window.
[new page=Did somebody say vroom vroom?]
6. Lamborghini
The former porn star sketches are always great. If you aren’t familiar, two former porn stars (played by Cecily Strong and Vanessa Bayer) make commercial to get free stuff. This was another one of the same.
The jokes were surprisingly more risqué then they have been in previous episodes and that made it better. The last porn star sketch wasn’t as funny but this one was better. SNL is at its best when they push the envelope.
[new page=Not Her]
5. Me
I was one of the few people in the world that wasn’t a fan of Her so I welcomed a parody of it with open arms. Me is a simple parody. What if Scarlet Johansson’s raspy voice was replaced by Theo’s own voice? It is funny just thinking about that but SNL took it a step further.
There was a Superbad reunion when Michael Cera showed up to be the surrogate for the sexual scenario between the voice and the man. Did it run a little long? Sure. But it was an interesting take on the critically acclaimed film.
[new page=Bieber, Seth and Cecily]
4. Weekend Update
Weekend Update had a lot to cover this week. With Bieber getting arrested and the Olympics coming up, Seth Myers and Cecily Strong were on their A-game. It was probably the funniest Weekend Update has been all season. They shot through those headlines.
The best guest was Kate McKinnon’s Russian peasant woman, Olya Povlatsky. Her Russian jokes were quick and her delivery was perfection. It was the greatest.
With how good this sketch was, it makes me really sad that Seth is leaving soon. I’m sure Cecily will do great with her new co-host but, for me, Seth is really going to be missed.
[new page=Look who is coming to dinner…]
3. Boss Dinner
This one was really hit or miss. For me, it was a hit. Jonah played a man at his boss’s house for dinner. Every time he misspoke or said anything wrong, he went into the bathroom and yelled about how terrible he was while the group outside could hear every word he said.
[new page=Who clogged it?]
2. Couple’s Quiz
I am a fan of toilet humor. Poop and fart jokes are always funny in my book. That is why I loved this sketch. It stands on one joke (like most sketches these days) about how someone clogged the toilet. Nobody wants to fess up about it and when Jonah’s character finally does, he has to continue to defend himself.
The game show is supposed to be about how well you know your partner but the entire time was wasted talking about the clogged toilet. I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to see the actual game show. Couple’s Quiz actually sounds like a decent sketch without the poop humor.
[new page=Am I flying?]
1. Jonah Hill Monologue
I have to admit, when Jonah started, I was worried. They started with disrupting cast members wanting to know about Leo. And I hate Taran Killam’s Brad Pitt impression. However, when Leo showed up, he really saved the day and made it the best sketch of the night.
Jonah was talking about being nervous so Leo gave him a Titanic treatment and it was amazing.